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{{creator}}
[[File:StewartLee.jpg|thumb]]
[[Stewart Lee]] is a British [[Stand Up Comedy|stand up comedian]], writer and director. Early on in his career he wrote material for ''[[Spitting Image]]'' and ''Weekending'' before teaming up with Richard Herring to write material for ''[[The Day Today]]'''s radio predecessor ''[[On The Hour]]''. Lee And Herring later started in their radios [[Sketch Comedy|sketch show]] ''Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World'' (Radio 4) and ''[[Fist of Fun]]'' (Radio 1) and presented three series of ''Lee and Herring'' on Radio 1 which mixed sketches which music chosen by the duo themselves. They later starred in a television version of ''Fist of Fun'' and a live Sunday afternoon show called ''This Morning With Richard Not Judy''. Lee then moved away from performing to concentrate on directing shows for fellow comedians [[The Mighty Boosh]] and Simon Munnery before co-writing and directing the notorious musical ''[[Jerry Springer]] - The Opera'' which attracted a prosecution for blasphemy. He then returned to stand-up and, in 2007, was awarded the dubious honour of being the 41st best Stand Up Comedian (which he took as the title of his next tour). He returned to television with ''Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle'', a mixture of stand-up and sketches.
Stewart Lee's comedy is noted for his extensive use of [[Deconstruction]] and [[Lampshading]] (to the point where he is likely to lampshade his deconstruction of a piece of [[Lampshading]] and then deconstruct himself doing so) and his ability to mine over half an hour's comedy from the most mundane of subjects.
He has so far released five stand up DVDs: ''Stand-Up Comedian'' (2005), ''90s Comedian'' (2006), ''41st Best Stand Up Ever!'' (2008), ''If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One'' (2010) and ''Carpet Remnant World'' (2012). His latest stand up tour ''Content Provider'' saw him perform 214 shows up and down the UK, over the course of 2016-18. A recording of the show was released on the BBC on the 28th July, 2018.<ref>[http://www.stewartlee.co.uk/live-dates/ Info on Content Provider] stewartlee.co.uk</ref>
He wrote a novel called ''The Perfect Fool'', and a book called ''How I Escaped My Certain Fate'' which is a sort of [[DVD Commentary]] on his first three DVDs.
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* [[Call Back]]: One of the masters of this technique.
{{quote|''" My Grandfather built his house out of old [[The Poppy|discarded poppies]]...now remember that because I'll be coming back to my Grandfather and, um, his nest of poppies and it'll be, um, extremely satisfying.'' }}
** In ''Content Provider'', Lee lampshades his use of callbacks in a bit at the end of the first half, revealing a "glimpse behind the Wizard's Curtain". From then on, the number and use of callbacks is marked, even though they are used (often through repetition) throughout the first half too:
{{Quote|"Just quickly, I'm gonna go over some of the jokes coming up in the second half...In the second half there's gonna be 2 more jokes about Deacon Blue, the eighties Scottish...they're not hilarious jokes, but what they are is what we call ''callbacks'', and they tie back to the earlier mention of Deacon Blue and they give the show the ''illusion of structure'', right, which is what raises us above the apes I think. Or ''"visiting American stand ups"'', as I call them."}}
*** Having planted the seed of 'callbacks to come', the joke about American comics not using them (being apes, or less evolved) allows Lee, via a string of jokes which callback to the first half, to announce the interval, effectively pushing the callback (device) out of consciousness, until later on.
* [[Cannot Tell a Joke]]: He can, but his on-stage persona is that of a miserable failure, and so he takes great delight in pretending to tell awful jokes, when the comedy really comes from his despair.
** He will also frequently tell a joke that is different from his usual style and then berate the audience for liking it, because it was shallow and simple-minded.
** Season 2 of Comedy Vehicle drives this home. He's told [[Executive Meddling|if he wants a third series]] he needs to put more jokes in it. So he comes up with 4 jokes, and within the first episode, he tells three of them. They aren't great jokes.
* [[Country Matters]]: masterful use of the 'c' word in his ''Content Provider'' show
{{Quote|"I don't know if you can make massive generalisations about people who voted to leave Europe anyway because people voted to leave Europe for all sorts of different reasons; and it wasn't just racists who voted to leave Europe... [[Beat]] ''Cunts'' did as well, didn't they? ''Stupid fucking cunts''. Racists and ''cunts''. And people with legitimate anxieties about ever closer political ties to Europe. "Dear Palace Theatre, South End, please inform the comedian (and I use that word advisedly) Stewart Lee - who I had the misfortune of being taken along to see by a friend last night - that I actually voted to leave Europe and I am neither a racist ''nor a cunt'', merely someone with genuine anxieties about ever closer political ties to Europe. Yours, ''A. Cunt''."}}
** Also see ''Hypocritical Humour'' below.
* [[Crossing the Line Twice]]. One of his favourite devices, pushing a particular routine as far as the audience will take it, and then further.
* [[Deconstruction]]: Lee loves to set a joke up or a particular set or style, completely ruin it, then spend the next 20 minutes explaining in detail every aspect of the joke and why it is funny.
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* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: With Richard Herring.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Double Acts and Groups]]
[[Category:Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]]
[[Category:Stewart Lee]]
[[Category:Comedian]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Directors]]
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
[[Category:Names to Know in Comedy]]
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